Black soup is a popular and tasteful Edo (Benin) soup, it is quite delicious and easy to prepare. This turned out really delcious, I love it and I’m guessing you are gonna love it too.
I have been exploring foods by other Nigerian ethnic groups and today we are gonna be making the popular edo (esan) black soup.

It really doesn’t matter your language or ethnic group, if you try this soup and get it right, you are going to have the same experience as those that have been enjoying it for ages.

Most people complain about the dark color, it gets the color from the ground leaves.

What you find below is delicious plate of black soup, the exact way it is made by Edo people, most people focus on the color and forget that it is really not all about the color. It is super tasty and very nutitious.

There are three basic leaves for making this delicious soup. While some argue extensively that only two are important, it is obvious that all of the three are neccessary. These leaves are actually ground together with the native edo grinding stone or the electric blender.

Some people make black soup with just Bitter leaf and effirin (scent leaf) while others prefer it the exact way I prepared it. I really this this is way better than every other combination 😀

Here are some of the ingredients that I used while making this delicious black soup. I did grind the uziza leaves and scent leaves together as you can find below, while the bitter leaf was ground alone as you can see in the bottom-right plate.

What you find at the top-right is palm fruit sauce, then a combination of ground crayfish and red pepper at the top left and cleaned roasted fish at the top-middle.

This soup is actually made with banga sauce (Palm fruit sauce) and not palm oil, just buy 4 cups of banga (palm fruit), boil for 15 minutes, pound with mortar and pestle, add water, filter to get the sauce, wash and filter to get 4 cups of thick banga sauce and set aside.

Preparation:
Grind all the leaves together, these ground leaves act as the soup thickener and also gives it the black looking color, hence the name – black soup. You can blend to paste by adding a little water to ease up the movement of the blades. I ground the bitterleaves seperatly while the uziza and scent leaves were mixed together.

Wash and boil the meat with half cup of onions, 2 cubes of maggi and a pinch of salt. Cook for 30-45 minutes, until the meat becomes soft and easily chew-able, you can add a little water to stop it from getting burned.

Add the dry fish (hot-water-washed), stock fish, crayfish, add the banga sauce and allow to cook for up to 15 minutes until the soupy mixture thickens.
This picture below give you a visual explanation, you can see that the soup is already thick, thanks to the banga (palm fruit) sauce.

Add the ground leaves, stir, add 2 cubes of maggi, salt to taste, allow to simmer for another five minutes and you are done.

As usual, serve with eba, fufu amala or semo.

NOTE: If you have cow liver included, you don’t wanna cook it over 10 minutes. you can start parboiling it with the rest of the meat but you have to remove it after 10 minutes and add them later when the soup is almost done.

Chy, thanks for the black soup recipe, before now I could only make igbo soup and few other popular Nigerian soups, I never imagine that I would fall in love with this edo soup, but now I am definitely adding it to my menu.

It is not so much about the color of foods, I agree completely that the color is important but sometimes we need to also consider the text and nutritional values. It is no secret that most good looking foods are usually a combination of junks that should have no business with the human body. Proudly Edo 😀

urs truly chy i have never added uziza leaf to cook black soup for my husband who happen to be from edo. i used bitterleaf saint leaf and utazi leaf. i then use ur recipe and my hubby licked the plate dry. chy u are GOD sent

Chy you are doing a great job indeed, good food is one of the important factors that holds a marriage, my husband is really having a good time with most of the food I tried out, we really cherish our barbecue fish,chicken and I even tried turkey, thanks alot and may God continues to crown your hard work with joy

Chy, I just tried this black soup……..it was really yummmy, ate it with pounded yam. I had never seen nor eaten this soup before but i followed your recipe and it came out really nice. My husband enjoyed it.
Thanks alot, God bless you and long live Nigeria kitchen.